made his name and fortune in venture capitalism, which he chronicles in his memoir, "valley boy: the education of tom perkins." it is a candid account of his life, his second marriage to romance novelist danielle steel, a manslaughter conviction in a boating accident in france, and the deals that made him so wealthy, starting with the first biotech company, genentech, here in san francisco. he and his partners launched genentech in 1976 with nothing more than a checkbook and an idea. >> the idea was to trick nature into letting us make something that didn't exist in nature -- in particular, human insulin. >> genentech's success led to new ways of treating everything from diabetes to dwarfism, and to getting rich. kleiner perkins' initial investment of $250,000 soared 800-fold to $200 million. >> that's what venture capitalists are created to do, and you can blame converting the orchards of silicon valley into parking lots partly on me and partly on genentech, because we proved that this kind of high-risk, high-tech venture capital could be an enormous home run, and everybody wanted to get in o